Rebekah's 14th Birthday

Our oldest child turned 14 the other day.  I am so happy to see how she is turning into a beautiful, Godly, young woman.  I love to see how God is using her and molding her.

We celebrated Rebekah's birthday by helping at kid's club at our church and having her birthday supper at home.

She has been busy studying her driver's handbook to take her learner's exam. In Alberta you only have to be 14 to get your learners.

Here are a few pictures.

Crustless Low Carb Pizza

I decided to make pizza for the family tonight for supper and realized I didn't have any low carb crust options for myself handy. I remembered a pin from Pinterest that just showed melted cheese with peperoni on top and I decided to give that a try. I made mine a bit different though.  I put about 3/4 cup shredded low fat mozzarella cheese in a non stick skillet and baked it at 350 until it was melted and covered the bottom. Then I put pizza sauce on top of the cheese and loaded it with toppings. I put mushrooms, a little bit of onions, diced red pepper and turkey peperoni. Then I broiled it for a few minutes.  It was seriously so good. It was my favorite low carb (Trim Healthy Mama) pizza option by far.

This is the pizza before I broiled it. I was too hungry when it was done to take another picture!

After I took it out of the oven, I stuck it in the fridge for a couple of minutes to let it firm up a bit and then I was able to get it on my plate. I ate it with a knife and fork and it was filling.

Yummy!

This post is linked up to Hope in Every Season

An All Natural Toilet Bowl Cleaner for Tough Stains

We have hard water here and our toilets have been really getting stained.  We have 3 bathrooms in our home and there is one bathroom off our mudroom that doesn't get cleaned as often as the others.  Only the male members of our family use it and it's also where our coat hooks are. So there are snowsuits and winter jackets all over the place in there. It is only about 4'x6'.

I tried cleaning the toilet with toilet bowl cleaner with bleach. Didn't even make ANY difference.  Here is the before picture after cleaning it with the cleaner.  I can't believe I'm sharing this with you. It's like when I posted about organizing my hall closet. But, when you find something that's exciting to you, you just feel compelled to share. So, here we go.

You can see the orange stains. It doesn't matter how hard I scrub with a toilet brush, they just don't come off. So I searched the internet and came to Stacy Makes Cents and she showed how she had used a pumice stone to scrub off nasty stains. She explained that pumice is softer than porcelain, so it won't scratch the surface.  I headed off to Dollar Tree and found this pumice stone in a pedicure pack.

I scrubbed and scrubbed. It took about 25 mins of scrubbing and I didn't realize how cold our well water is until I took a break. When I took off the rubber glove, my hand was completely numb!

Here is what it looks like now.

So much better!  If winter would ever end, we could put away the snowsuits and actually enjoy this bathroom.

This post is linked up to Thrifty Thursdays Hope in Every Season

Low Carb Stuffed Crust Pizza

I have found on this new healthy way I have been eating (THM), that I don't really like the choices for pizza crust. I make pizza quite often and have been trying various forms of crust, such as, cauliflower crust and sourdough crust. Both of those are not my favorite. I made the kids pepperoni pizza yesterday for lunch and a wonderful thought came to me.

What if I use two of my low carb tortillas as a crust? And better yet, what if I put grated mozzarella cheese in between the layers to make a "stuffed crust" pizza?  Well, it turned out fabulous! I used Mama Lupe's Low Carb tortillas. I buy them from Low Carb Canada and they only have 3 grams of carbs per tortilla.

I made myself a pepperoni pizza and I really enjoyed it. It was nice and quick too.

I have one more crust recipe I will try in the future. It has cream cheese, cheese, cream and an egg in it. Sounds good, I just don't always have cream cheese on hand.  I'll let you know how it turns out when I make it.

"Church" Salad Recipe (THM)

I have been following the Trim Healthy Mama way of eating since November and I am happy with how it is going.  There are some things I always enjoyed eating, but haven't thought of how they would work on this "diet".  I am slowly converting my old recipes over to Trim Healthy Mama approved recipes.  "Church" Salad is one of them.  My Mother in Law makes this jello salad with cherry jell-o and canned fruit. It is so good!  Oh! By the way, I call it "Church" Salad  because of what my friend, Colleen, said at Thanksgiving at our house years ago. She made a comment that she only sees jello salads at church pot lucks and she called it church salad. That's what we've called it since.

I can eat this salad now thanks to sugar free jello.

Church Salad

 

2 c cottage cheese

1 box sugar free Jell-o

2 cups whipped cream (I sweetened it with stevia)

1 c raspberries or berries

 

Mix the Jell-o with the cottage cheese for a few minutes to help dissolve crystals. Fold in the whipped cream. Fold in the berries. Refrigerate for a couple of hours.  Enjoy!

 

 

I would like to try this with sugar free cherry Jell-o, but our grocery store doesn't carry it. Also, I think I would like it with strawberries too.

 

 

 

 

Another AMAZING Birthday!

This past weekend I had a hard birthday for me to come to terms with.  I don't know why I have such trouble with the number 40, but I do.  Almost all my friends are over that age and I think they're  young and vibrant, but for me, I just feel old.  Now that it's over, I don't really think about it anymore though and life goes on as usual.

Even though I had a hard time getting a little older, I still had a totally awesome birthday.  The night before my birthday, I was laying on the couch, checking out Trim Healthy Mama recipes on Pinterest, when I heard weird breathing behind me. I turned around to see the most glorious sight, my mom, brother and nephew!  They drove 14 hours to come and celebrate my BIG  birthday with me.  I just screamed when I saw them, which really hurt my throat, because of all the cheering I had been doing for the Olympics the past 2 weeks.

They only were able to stay 2 nights, leaving the 2nd morning, but we had a wonderful visit.  My family had planned on going to a family restaurant that Larry and I used to eat at before we had kids and I haven't been there since for my birthday supper, so we all went.  A lot changes in 15 years. The whole chicken breast on my salad was now only 4 skinny strips and the banana cream pie didn't come with tons of real whipped cream anymore and the prices basically doubled!  You can tell we don't eat at a lot of restaurants. We had a blast though and I really did enjoy the food.

It was sad to see them go, but we had a really nice visit while they were here and my little nephew and boys got to get to know each other better.  He and Jacob are only 2 weeks apart.

Here are some pictures;

The boys having fun outside.  It was COLD!

The night before my birthday Rebekah made me a hazelnut chocolate Trim Healthy Mama cake.  I am making a wish.

Me, before we left for supper.

Larry and I at the restaurant.

All of us at the restaurant.

My 3 kids. I love how it looks like Ben's head is growing out of Jacob's shoulder.

My brother, mom and me.

Jacob and my mom.

A Field Trip to the Alamo

We are so blessed with my husband's job.  He really enjoys it and he travels over a lot of the States.  He delivers new vacuum trucks to where they need to go and then he gets flown home.  And another bonus is, he can take someone with him.
It worked out last November that he was going to San Antonio and we knew our daughter, Rebekah, would LOVE to go. She really enjoys American history and knows about the Alamo and has wanted to go there for some time.
They stopped at the Custer Battlefield Museum in Montana along the way and saw some other neat historical sites in San Antonio.
She has finally wrote a post about it on her blog. Please head over there to read about her awesome trip.

Part One
Part Two


This post is linked up to;  Hope in Every Season, Growing Home